[ad. L. coitiōn-em going or coming together, n. of action, f. coit-, ppl. stem of co-īre to go together.]
† 1. Going or coming together; meeting; uniting.
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terapeutyke, 2 C iij. That whiche letteth the coition and coalescence.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 695. Coition I meane or conjunction of the ayre.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Coition, an assembly, confederacy or commotion.
1691. Sir P. King, Worship Prim. Ch., II. (1712), 12. The tongue … sounds or speaks through the knocking or coition of the Lips.
† b. ‘A mutual tendency of bodies toward one another, as of the iron and loadstone’ (Bailey).
1613. M. Ridley, Magn. Bodies, 79. Where the coition … is most strong.
1638. Wilkins, New World, xiv. (1707), 118. Gravity … ’Tis such a … mutual desire of union, whereby condensed Bodies … do naturally apply themselves one to another by attraction or coition.
1662. in Phenix (1708), II. 514. The Antients knew no more of the Loadstone than its Coition, which they improperly call’d Attraction.
† c. ‘Conjunction’ of the planets. Obs.
1678. Phillips, s.v., Coition of the Moon is when the Moon is in the same sign and degree with the Sun.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, Slawkenbergius’ Tale. Five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio.
2. Sexual conjunction, copulation. [so late L. coitio, class. L. coitus.]
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 51.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. (1656), § 9. I could be content … that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this triviall and vulgar way of coition.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 376. Thus every Creature, and of every Kind, The secret Joys of sweet Coition find.
1701. Grew, Cosmol. Sacra, I. v. 29 (J.). He is not made productive of his kind, as a Plant, within himself; but by Coition with a Female.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1828), IV. xlii. 153. Coition and impregnation were not simultaneous.
1876. trans. Wagner’s Gen. Pathol., 115.
b. transf. and fig.
1649. Milton, Eikon., xi. (1851), 427. To affirme … that the Parlament, which is his Mother, can neither conceive or bring forth any autoritative Act without his Masculine coition.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 9.
1674. Petty, Dupl. Proportion, 131. I might suppose that Atoms are also Male and Female … and that the above-named Byasses are the Points of Coition.
